Yeah for Andrea's First Cake!!

This is my SIL Andrea's first birthday cake. Actually, it's Julia's first birthday cake, that Andrea made! She did an awesome job! I think it turned out so cute and really can you go wrong with frosting and cake, I mean, really?






You've gotta' love their first taste of cake! The messier the better!!

Thanks Andrea for letting me post your cute pictures. Wish we could have been there!!

Oh My Cutest Lion Cake EVER!!

Okay, I'm going to be honest. This is the Cutest Lion Birthday Cake. I almost scrapped the train birthday cake when I saw this one! It's so freakin' cute! Seriously, I can not get over it. The swirly cupcakes making the mane, the cute little lion face. Jimi sent this one in from her nephews (?) birthday!! Seriously I can not get over this cake. It's just adorable!

Bulkhead Transformer Cake

Wow. This cake is so cool. Any little boy would L-O-V-E this one!!! This is Bulkhead from Transformers. Melinda used fondant and gumpaste to cover and make this amazing cake. What a lucky guy!!

Bumblebee cake, to come....

Taco Birthday Cake

This is what happens when a nine year old girl can't decide what kind of birthday cake she wants! I get creative and fall back on the old "scout cake auction" kind of cakes my dad used to make! I think this one turned out pretty cute! Original and quirky. Just like my nine year old!

Just when you thought you'd seen it all....You can pretty much make a cake into anything you'd like! Fun. What fun cakes have you made??

Cute Train Birthday Cake

So, here it is. The much anticipated (ha!) train birthday cake! I think it turned out pretty cute. There are definitley some things I would do differently, but all in all, it's a train, what else can you ask for?

I think I put too many train cars on there. I should have left one off, so you could see more of the track. It turned out really cute and you can't see it at all. Oh well. Live and Learn.

I just made 7 small loaf pans of cake. I froze them and once I was ready to use them I started hacking away. I cut kind of a well, or a hole in the top of 3 of the cakes, to use as cargo cars. Basically just so I could load them with candy and it wouldn't spill over the edges, to kind of contain it! I left the other one just regular and frosted it, for the animal cage. For the engine, I cut the front of it into a V for the cattle guard and stacked another cake on top and then just another little piece, just to give it some dimension. I don't know that it necessarily looks like an engine, but you get the idea. I gave them all a "crumb coat" of frosting and refrigerated them to stiffen up the frosting a bit. Right before I was ready to assemble the cake, I gave them a final frost and placed them on the tracks.

Up close on the engine.

For the tracks, I used those peppermint sticks. I think they were on clearance from Christmas. They were the perfect width. Then I cut chocolate twizzlers in half lengthwise, and placed them across the sticks. See why I wanted to be able to see it. Pretty cute. I just made mini cupcakes, frosted the tops and wrote on them "choo choo Cole's 2" not very creative, but it gets the point across.

The final product. I just took some white frosting and added some details to the cars. For the animal car, I used toothpicks with dots on top. I couldn't really think of a way to make a "circus car" so, I guess that works :)!! I used a little bit of polyfil (batting) for the smoke. I just kind of pulled it apart so it looked like smoke and stuck a toothpick through it to hold it on. For the headlight, a Dot with a toothpick through it! Tootsie rolls for logs, whoppers for coal (whatever!), m & m's for well, m & m's I suppose. It just looked cute!

Not too shabby!

Try it, let me know what you think!!

Cake Pops!

Okay, this is definitely NOT an original Emily idea. I totally stole these from Bakerella, but they are divine! My sisters and I made them for my cute sister-in-laws baby shower on Saturday. They were cinchy to make and impressive to look at (not so much mine!) and yummy as all get out! And I figured hey, they're made out of cake. They're totally going on my blog. So, here we go....

You start out by making a cake. Just a plain old cake. I made carrot. Then, once it's completely cooled you break it apart and shred it into fine crumbs. You can even put it in the food processor or blender. The finer the crumbs the better it blends. Next comes frosting(I used cream cheese). You can use any flavor. It's best to use the store bought kind in the round containers. The consistency works the best and then you can measure how much you're using!! Start off with about 2/3 of the container. Scoop it into the bowl with the cake crumbs and using the back of a spoon, smash and mix it all together until it is about the consistency of wet sand. Use a bit more if you need it. You don't want it too wet, but if it's too crumbly, it won't stick together to make the ball shape. Next, shape into balls with your hands and place on a wax covered sheet until it's all used up!! The next part is easy. You get sucker sticks ( Roberts, Funfinity, any cooking store) and you dip the tip of it into a bit of melted dipping chocolate. Once you have dipped just the tip in the chocolate, stick it into the balls. Like so...

Up close shot. Once you're finished put them in the freezer immediately. The melted chocolate will hold the cake and the pop together, so that when you dip them they stay on the stick. Leave them in the freezer for at least an hour. Longer if you need more time!!

And then melt your dipping chocolate (I used white chocolate) over a double broiler. Remember, DO NOT LET THE WATER BOIL UNDERNEATH. It will ruin the chocolate. Then just dip the pops in the chocolate and cover completely.

After I covered them I would lift them out and gently spin them to get the excess chocolate off. Then stand them upright in a styrofoam block and decorate as you wish. I used pink sprinkles (girl baby :))

Okay, so they're not beautiful or perfect, but they're yummy and I love them.

I served them like this. Not great, but hey, it worked! Notice the little cracks in the chocolate. I don't know how to avoid that. It just happens when you dip frozen cake in hot chocolate and it hardens too quickly. Sorry, but they still taste so good! Try it. The possibilities are endless. Chocolate cake, coconut pecan icing, chocolate and nuts on top. Strawberry cake, vanilla frosting, chocolate. You could do a million things. Try it and let me know what you think.

How cute is that table setting?